Canandaigua firearm company's product awarded for innovation

A local gun-maker’s design for a light-weight rifle has hit a bullseye with the law enforcement community.

Last month, the JR Carbine, made by Just Right Carbines LLC, was awarded the 2010 Innovation Award in Firearms and Weapons at a conference of the International Association of Police Chiefs.
The award came from Cygnus Law Enforcement Group, publisher of Law Enforcement Technology and Law Enforcement Product News magazines.

“We want to make a more versatile, better rifle for law enforcement that is lighter and easier to carry,” Miranda Bernabei, managing partner with the Just Right Carbines. “That’s what we designed this product for.”

The gun beat out entries from such established gun-makers as Smith & Wesson and Clyde Armory.
Just Right Carbines LLC, based in Canandaigua, is a start-up company that is based on a firearm designed by Tom Fargnoli, a Naples gunsmith. Award-winning target shooters have used rifles built by Fargnoli, said David White, general manager of the company.

Fargnoli and five partners banded together earlier this year to establish the small company, which is dedicated to making the JR Carbine.

The JR Carbine is currently available in 9mm caliber and .40 caliber models and the company will soon release .45 caliber and .22 caliber models. The gun weighs about six and a half pounds and is between 30 to 37 inches long, depending on whether it has a collapsible stock.

The rifle’s flexibility makes it a hit with police officers, White said.

“Police officers like it because it uses the same size cartridges and magazines as the pistols they carry,” he said.

The guns can be modified to fit any make of magazine, White said, and they can be modified to fit right-handed and left-handed shooters.

t also gives officers the accuracy of a rifle, with the lesser power of a pistol, Bernabei said, which can be useful in situations where bullet penetration can be dangerous.

Since it was released, the JR Carbine has made the rounds at trade shows around the country, like the 2010 Ellett Shooting Showcase in South Carolina and 2010 Shot Show in Las Vegas.

The company set up its manufacturing operation in Canandaigua earlier after receiving a $100,000 New York State Community Development Block Grant. The company employs about seven workers. It plans on hiring another three to four workers next year, said Mike Cutri, one of the managing partners of the business.

The company assembles the rifles from parts made in area machine shops at its roughly 4,500-square foot space, White said, and also ships the guns from there. Just Right Carbines hopes to ship about 200 guns per week, he said.

The company works exclusively with Early & Modern Firearms Company, a distributor which sells firearms to gun shops and law enforcement agencies across the country.

Currently, the company is fine-tuning the design and working out any kinks before it starts shipping the guns out, Cutri said. The company currently has an order for 8,000 of the guns, he said.